According to TeeVee, Easy to Assemble has signed

a deal for a one-week exclusive on each of the remaining nine episodes of the show’s first season, to be released every Monday as [CBS’s TV.com]’s first original scripted series.

TV.com is not paying a licensing fee, but rather offering promotion to a television-loving audience who Bannister hopes will understand the show’s I Love Lucy jokes and like the show enough to prompt IKEA to pay for a second season. Bannister said it’s worth giving up that window in order to get away from “fighting for exposure on YouTube.” (You can find the series on TV.com here where it is (sniff) not embeddable and preceeded by a pre-roll ad.)

What intestest me in this article is the question of whether the series is actually advertising.

It does sound a bit odd, right? TV.com running what is basically an IKEA ad?

“I don’t think this is advertising,” is Bannister’s explanation. “For branded entertainment to succeed, it has to get away from overly controlled, overly shilling thing.” The ultimate goal for Easy to Assemble, he said, is to make more episodes — but not to get on TV, where the show’s offbeat storytelling might be constrained.

I don't believe Easy to Assemble is advertising. Although I have problems with the series creatively, I don’t mind that IKEA is funding it all. In fact, if IKEA’s intention is to make me think they are cool brand, I do. I like any brand that provides resources and creative freedom. And I think Illeana Douglas is a genius. She can serve her theme with integrity even though it is set inside an IKEA store. In fact, she's been noodling with this story for years; what happens when a famous woman goes to work in a retail setting. Now, IKEA is helping her do it, but letting her have creative control. Is there an artist out there who can imagine a better setup?

I did criticize that first episode. I wish Illeana had assembled her thoughts a little more before turning the camera on. The episode is aimless, it has no structure, no discipline and very little comedy. Not to mention that there was a total lack of that fame theme that I'd been expecting. What it needed most was a script.

But Illeana took the time to comment, asking for some patience and I realized that I am too harsh. My expectations are high and few web series are living up to them. I think I am asking too much.

This is a medium in its infancy. We have so little experience creating scripted drama on the net. No one knows how to do it yet, we're all guessing, all experimenting.

In the early days of TV, we pointed a camera at stage plays and called it television. It may not have been what we now think of as great television, but people came and watched and enjoyed. Eventually, we learned. But the truth is that the true genius we've watched on tv is all experimental: Larry Sanders, The Wire, Sopranos, Mad Men. And most of it the result of trusting creative people to do their thing.

We've got a ways to go with digital media. But we’ll get there.

Especially with friends like IKEA, PEAK FREANS, BURGER KING, ACURA and all the other brands supporting innovative creative on the web. You rock.

Whether you're working in the digital space, on a screen, canvas or keyboard, your work contributes to this country. We create jobs, bolster the economy, give tourists a reason to visit and dream the Canada that all Canadians can build.

Mr Harper's strategy seems to be to vilify us. Let's show him who he's dealing with. Join us on the street and send him a message about who we really are.

Election Rally

October 8, 2008

11:30-12-30

Front and John Street near the CBC Broadcast Centre

TORONTO, CANADA

The first episode of Ileana Douglas's Easy to Assemble is up and all I can say is "huh?"

Did they forget to write a script? There is no story here and perhaps not even a plan about how to fill up the episode time. The blurb tells us that it's Illeana's first day on the job and raises the question "will she survive?" So that's what it's about; I couldn't tell from watching.

We open on Illeana and her co-worker Lance who is decked out in a bright yellow wig -- does someone think that makes him funny? Illeana explains the premise to him:

I'm an actress and Ikea is paying me... well you see they hired me to um... I'm famous so I don't really have to work. I just add a little sparkle... a little twinkle as George Segal says.

Next comes a montage of Illeana and Lance doing unfunny things in an Ikea warehouse. The emphasis is on Lance's mugging for the camera, apparently Illeana is the straight man here. Although she is the one who assembles an Ikea table with the legs all askew. Wow, not even remotely funny.

There's a scene in which Lance and Illeana give names to Ikea products. Calling a lampshade Peter Sellers is sort of amusing, but will the reference (like the one to George Segal) play to an internet audience? Or is it hopeless outdated?

Now comes a musical interlude, complete with colourful graphics, music credits and lyrics on the screen. I don't know why. Maybe a song break is a regular feature in the series. Maybe it's more brand integration. Intercut with the musical break, is a sequence with two people in Ikea uniforms talking about how Illeana is nice and brings lots of customers into the store. We go back to this pair for the last minute and a half of the episode as they talk about all the cliches associated with Sweden in Swedish accents.

I still can't the Easy to Assemble website to work. I thought maybe it was a geo-blocking issue, but I found and watched the first episode on YouTube, so I guess that's not the problem. I don't know what is.

So, what we have here is a web series that doesn't have a story, isn't funny, has blah characters and fills up six minutes with pretty much nothing. Any reason to watch another episode? They did promise cameos by Jeff Goldblum and Justine Bateman, so maybe. Plus Illeana has done better work. But all in in all, there's very little reason to check out this first episode of Easy to Assemble. But if you must, here it is:

The September/October issue of Creative Screenwriter has an article called Distilled Drama: Writing the Web Serial. Ironically, the article isn't available on the web -- you have to buy the magazine which is on the news stand now. The piece has a close up look at the writing of Gemini Division, a 50 episode series created by Brent Friedman, who also created Afterworld.

There's lot of great information in the article and the six page script of the first episode is reproduced. Unfortunately, Gemini Division is geo-blocked so it's hard to analyze the writing advicewithout the context of the finished product.

Friedman's strategy in developing Gemini Division was to create a much larger and more intricate world than he could explore in the series' 50 four minute episodes. They chose a smallish story within that world and told it from a single character's perspective. They worked out the full longer story and then broke it into webisode size story chunks that allow each episode "...to have just the faintest hint of a beginning, middle and an end." Each episode has an ending that raises the kinds of questions that bring viewers back for another.

Andy Black, a Gemini Division writer with TV credits like Crossing Jordan and Numbers is quoted:

Every line of action and dialog has specific meaning that really kind of pushes one scene into the next and into the next. It takes a couple of tries to get it right. And a lot of patience, I think, on Brent's side to play with it and say "You can still get these key emotional moments into the story, but do it like this."

For his part, Friedman talks about getting the TV writers to abandon old ways of doing things and to unlearn standard ways of writing, thinking and breaking story.

Gemini Division is produced by Electric Farm Entertainment. Here's the trailer, which isn't geo-blocked:

Peak Freans is sponsoring a web drama series to promote one of their lines of cookies to adults. The first episode of As the Cookie Crumbles was posted Thursday at 3 p.m. with a new episode being posted ever Thursday at 3 until November 6th.

So far it's not very intriguing or particularly funny. And the attempt at sexiness (a waiter who keeps removing his shirt) is lame -- for this I have to give my birthdate to prove I'm an adult?!

It's supposed to be a take-off on a soap opera, but they've taken everything hackneyed and cliche about soap -- and down nothing with it: no twists, no humour, no energy. Even the blurb under "about the show" is boring.

Here we find a mixture of cliché characters ranging from our hero, the 30-something professional woman, to the local philanthropist, to the gossipy waitress. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, and Peek Freans Lifestyle Selections gripped tightly between the thumb and index finger, each episode will follow the typical soap opera structure as the characters reveal their secrets and lies in a web of intrigue, deceit, romance, heartbreak and snacking.

"30-something professional woman"? Now there's an exciting character description for the hero. "Follow the typical soap opera structure"? Ooo, doesn't that sound appealing?

Not only are the cookies mentioned, shown and eaten frequently during the episode, but you're also forced to sit through a pre-roll ad for them. Isn't it enough that the site is branded and the product (clumsily) integrated?

The first episode attempts to introduce 10 characters -- too big a cast for a web series, if you ask me and certainly for too many to service in a web-length episode. There's no room left to develop any plot... plot being the thing that makes you want to come back to watch another episode.

There are no writing or production credits anywhere on the site, making it clear that this is just about selling cookies and not at all about entertaining audiences. Brandweek has the backstory.

Oddly, there's no option to embed the video, not that I really want to share it with you that badly, but embeddable video is just one of those standards every web series needs to succeed. And why wouldn't they want this ad content to spread?

Possibly the worst thing about the first episode is that despite being a blatant ad, it does nothing to make the cookie appealing. There are no beauty shots of them. No one funny, sexy or dramatic contexts to their consumption. The actors don't even seem to be enjoying them.

Here are people with Kraft's money behind them and the resources of several ad agencies behind them and this is the best they can come up with?

Ad agencies and marketers are fond of talking about how the internet changes everything; how brands have to establish new relationships with their client; how corporations have to get into the social networking spaces. Another thing brands should do if they want to meet up with their clients on the web? Get some artists with something to say carry their messages for them. This web serial is about as exciting as a cardboard box -- when the cookies are already gone.

Many web serials look amateurish when they first launch. But that doesn't mean that given time and experience, the series won't turn into something fairly professional. A good example is Pure Pwnage, a Toronto-based web serial now in it's second season. The series was created by Geoff Lapaire and Jarett Cale. These guys have gone quickly from no0bs to… well, pure pwnage.

Just compare the first two epsidoes of season 1. Episode 1 opens with character Jeremy refusing to get out of bed. Hardly compelling content. It takes about 3 minutes before anything really starts to happen and although his character emerges in the course of the half hour episode, there doesn't seem to be a point to any of it. It's just aimless rambling. Now turn to episode 2, with it's quick cuts of lots of girls talking about pro-gamers. Maybe it's still not the most intriguing content ever but the cutting and shooting are leaps and bounds beyond the previous episode.

And the episodes just keep getting better. By the time you get to this season, the creators have developed some serious film making chops and the story telling isn't bad either.

This is the power of the net (or one of them anyway). Anyone can become a creator and if they stick with it, they can go from amateur to professional. Now Lapaire and Cale are the serious pros of the web serial world. They've been at it since 2004, have a following of millions and apparentally, make a living at it.

I love this quote from the Wikipedia page on Pure Pwnage:

The word "pwnage" can be pronounced several different ways. The show's creators pronounce it "ownage". Jeremy justifies this pronunciation with the following statements: "When people say '/poʊn/', they sound like a complete fag, and I'm not cool with being a fag, so I pronounce it 'own'."

The episodes are very long by web serial standards, running closer to TV lengths. And even 18 episodes in, I think they could stand a good edit, but who am I to argue with success? Take a look at the most recent episode and then wander over to their site and take a look. It's nicely built with all the features you want.

1 Tim Street has an important article on Seth Macfarlane's Burger King deal and how it changes the face of the marketplace for web serials. You should go read the whole article, but here's an excerpt:

Because in the past if you were going to launch a new show you had to build an audience before you could find an advertiser who would be willing to spend money sponsoring your show but now the rules have changed.

Now I can find a sponsor who like the idea of my new show (that hasn't launched yet) and I can guarantee them ad impressions with my new show.

How can you do that?

If they sponsor a co-branded widget or co-branded Google Gadget Ad with my video content in it and I buy placement across the Google Ad Universe I can guarantee them the amount of impressions I buy from Google because I know Google will deliver those 300x250 interactive banners to any relevant site that I buy space on.

I'm excited to do some experimenting with the Gigya widget in question. Until then, here's the promo for Macfarlane's Burger King sponsored Cavalcade series:

Bob Garfield talks about advertizing in a digital age. For more from Bob Garfield, check out his blog on the Advertising Age site.

As we struggle to figure out how to finance digital creations (especially in light of the rumours that Telefilm's New Media Fund will not be renewed), it's worth reading Wade Rowland's recent essay, Fatal Attactraction in the Literary Review of Canada.

The piece is really about the television industry, but it makes it clear that the real business of broadcasting has nothing to do with content production and is entirely about delivering an audience to advertisers.

The market that the broadcast industry has created consists not of audiences bidding for programming from a variety of program suppliers (broadcasters), but of advertisers bidding for audiences from audience suppliers—which is the role broadcasters play.

In a commercial broadcast operation a low-cost production will always be favoured over a higher-cost production that attracts much the same audience.

The piece sort of appalls me as a television writer because on a daily basis I forget that what I'm doing isn't really about quality. But as a producer of digital drama, I read the essay and get pretty excited. I think the new media have a distinct competitive edge here. Digital is cheaper than television -- by quite a lot. That gives us a big advantage.

But we need to be able to prove consistent audiences -- and to start setting up relationships with advertisers.